Do economic sanctions deter?

Harvard doctoral graduate Ioana M. Petrescu has studied a much-discussed but little-studied subject: do economic sanctions actually work? Her recent paper, Rethinking Economic Sanction Success: Sanctions as Deterrents (PDF), finds that they do appear to deter future disputes:

Economic sanctions are one of the most common foreign policy tools. Despite their widespread use, there is little empirical evidence and much debate about how sanctions affect countries’ behavior. In this study, I investigate whether sanctions affect future military behavior.

I look at the effects of sanctioning a country involved in a militarized dispute on the probability that the sanctioned country or any other country involved in the dispute will be involved in a militarized dispute in the future. I also look at the effects of the sanction on the probability that countries similar to the ones in the sanctioned dispute will participate in another dispute in the future. I use the Correlates of War data on militarized interstate disputes and Hufbauer et al.’s data on economic sanctions.

I find that countries involved in a dispute and countries similar to the ones involved in the dispute are less likely to participate in another dispute in the future if one of the countries involved in the original dispute was sanctioned.

Comments

[Lafayette]

Article: "Do economic sanctions deter?"

Is that the right question? Historically, the answer is not all that positive for determent. Look at the southern African countries like Rhodesia or South Africa that blithely disregarded them. Or Hussein's Iraq?

Are sanctions a moral imperative? There, the answer is more clear. They are. A nation that characteristically transgresses basic human rights should be sanctioned by commercial trade and financial restrictions or, even, total boycotts.

In fact, that is the ONLY tool that is available to coerce recalcitrant nations to respect democratic notions of liberty and human rights.

Qaddafi was received recently by Portugal, France and Spain in pomp and splendor in an attempt to recuperate this wayward boy who, apparently, with age has seen his errors. (Or, perhaps, he is simply trying to assure his son's ascension and place on the throne?) Anyway, the opening by the EU was a necessary risk to give Libya a second chance. Opening to North Korea, once it is ready to do so, should also be a necessary risk to undertake one day. And Iran. Yes, Iran too. One day.

Yes, there are the niggards that qualified his reception as "caving in" to business interests. Perhaps there was bit of that. But, would we want his new nuclear reactors to be built by the Russians or the French? And, if he accepts the necessary restrictions (regarding nuclear fuel) on the reactor deal, is it all that bad?

Sanctions may not deter, but -- with patience -- they may ultimately persuade.